LinkedIn on Tuesday began rolling out a redesign that the professional social network said will make it easier for users to "make a powerful first impression and showcase [their] skills and accomplishments."

The updated LinkedIn user profile is being ramped immediately for English-language users of the site and will be rolled out for all users over the next few months, the company said. There will not be an option for users to revert to the older LinkedIn profile design after they've been upgraded to the new look.

LinkedIn also introduced a new feature for users with the redesignthe ability to follow 150 of "the world's most respected thought leaders" (pictured above). The company called the addition of a "follow" mechanism, which allows users to keep up with this select group of individuals, "a natural extension" of existing tools for following companies and news feeds, but said it had no current plans to monetize the new feature.

"The ability to follow thought leaders on LinkedIn allows members to engage directly in professional conversations with influencers, comment directly on professionally relevant topics, and share them with their peers," LinkedIn said. "For our influencers who will be regularly posting content and updates, LinkedIn offers the ability to reach the largest network of professionals around the world and be able to have professionally relevant conversations with them."

The streamlined profile redesign (see the new profile below) has some visual similarities to Facebook, but LinkedIn said that its "simplification efforts" have been evolving over time and intimated that any similarities to the larger, more broadly based social network were only a result of offering "the best experience for members."

The new LinkedIn offers users better access to their professional connections via "rich and visual insights on the people and companies in your network," the company said. One way this happens in the redesign is through the new placement of recent activity by others at the top of a user's profile page.

User privacy remains a core concern of the company, LinkedIn added. The redesign does not change users' ability to set their own parameters for what they share with other LinkedIn users, but simply adds a "more visual representation of what our members have opted-in to sharing on their profiles," the company said.

LinkedIn also said it is working on a new in-platform delivery system for inApps content, which will remain accessible to users through third-party websites as the company "transition[s] our current inApps users to the new experience in the coming weeks."

The company also highlighted some recent developments on the platform, including improvements to accessibility of the site on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, which LinkedIn said it is in the "early stages" of monetizing with ads and other revenue streams, as well as a newly redesigned Company Pages and a retooling of the social network's LinkedIn Today social news feed.

LinkedIn users who want to switch to the new profile now can go to www.linkedin.com/profile/sample and upgrade today.

About the Author

Damon Poeter got his start in journalism working for the English-language daily newspaper The Nation in Bangkok, Thailand. He covered everything from local news to sports and entertainment before settling on technology in the mid-2000s. Prior to joining PCMag, Damon worked at CRN and the Gilroy Dispatch. He has also written for the San Francisco Ch... See Full Bio

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